Ruggero Settimo

Ruggero Settimo is a leading figure in the Sicilian revolution of 1848–49, presented both as president of the revolutionary government and as a committed advocate of an independent Sicilian state. His role joins political conviction to practical compromise: he tries to find a form of government the island’s nobility might accept, yet his revolutionary administration also commandeers a Florio steamship and draws the merchant Vincenzo Florio into a dispute over the costs of resistance. After the Bourbon reconquest, Settimo is sentenced to exile, and his absence becomes part of the bitter reckoning over who defended Palermo and who surrendered it.

Political role and aims

Settimo appears in discussion of the revolution as one of those working to establish an independent Sicily. Giulia Portalupi invokes his commitment alongside that of Rosolino Pilo: whatever the prospects of success, she argues to Vincenzo, these men possess the passion to carry their convictions forward. Her account distinguishes political purpose from the question of whether the project can prevail. For Settimo, the revolutionary cause is not merely a set of proclamations; it is a government attempting to give the island a political future apart from Bourbon rule.

That future remains uncertain. Vincenzo tells Giulia that the revolutionaries have proclaimed a Kingdom of Sicily but have found no king willing to accept its crown—not the son of Carlo Alberto, Duke of Genoa, nor another candidate. The effort to revive the 1812 constitution therefore lacks a monarch as a point of reference, while British opposition to Sicily’s separation from the Bourbons further complicates the project. The political problem surrounding Settimo’s government is thus larger than the choice between competing ideals: it must establish authority while lacking both an agreed sovereign and dependable external support.

Government and the costs of revolution

Vincenzo’s account gives Settimo a notably pragmatic quality. As president of the Sicilian government, he firmly believes in what he is doing, but is also willing to reason. He recognizes, in Vincenzo’s view, that Sicily is not ready for a republican government and that the nobility would never accept one; his course is consequently to mediate and seek a solution. This makes Settimo a figure of compromise within the revolutionary leadership, set against the more stubborn republican position Vincenzo attributes to Pasquale Calvi.

The government’s demands nevertheless bring the revolution into direct conflict with Vincenzo’s commercial interests. The Sicilian Steamship Company’s vessel Palermo, previously working at full capacity, is taken by Settimo and the revolutionary regime to transport troops. Vincenzo also says that trading has fallen by half since the revolt began and names the merchant bank, foundry, and ships among the businesses affected. He resents having his money used to wage war after a lifetime spent building his enterprise; the commandeering of the Palermo makes the conflict concrete, turning a dispute over political commitment into a dispute over property, livelihood, and who must bear the cost of the cause.

The burden extends beyond the ship. Vincenzo recalls that the family’s vessels were requisitioned and that they were practically forced to provide a loan. The revolutionary authorities’ proclamations, including the demand that the middle classes support the revolt, have also damaged his interests. Settimo’s willingness to reason does not spare the Florios from these material consequences: mediation may offer a political route forward, but the revolutionary government still depends on resources taken or demanded from people whose confidence in its course is uncertain.

Reconquest, exile, and the dispute over surrender

The family’s experience of the revolution gives its political reversals an intimate scale. In 1849, ten-year-old Ignazio Florio understands that the Bourbons have been driven out and that a new government involving his father has come to power, but no one explains the conflict fully to him. He hears that Taormina, Catania, Siracusa, and Noto surrendered in early April, and learns that Palermo is now the next city at stake. The adults’ political crisis reaches him as displacement and uncertainty: the family leaves first its house on Via dei Materassai and then Villa dei Quattro Pizzi.

During the danger, Vincenzo shelters the family aboard L’Indépendant, a steamship he had bought for the separate venture Ignazio and Vincenzo Florio. He reassures Giulia that the ship remains registered as French and that neither the rebels nor the Neapolitans will attack it for fear of provoking France. Settimo is not present in this recollection as a speaking character, but his government’s military situation forms part of the danger surrounding the family. The revolutionary cause that claims the Palermo for troop transport and calls for the middle classes’ support is unfolding alongside the Florios’ effort to preserve their lives and business as the Bourbon reconquest advances.

After the revolutionary defeat, Settimo is among the prominent figures sentenced to exile. Riso names him together with Rosolino Pilo, Giuseppe La Masa, and the prince of Butera, saying that around forty people who had been most at the forefront of the movement are to be exiled. The report marks the end of Settimo’s immediate political presence in Sicily, but it does not settle the moral argument about the defeat. Instead, his exile becomes the backdrop to an angry confrontation over the surrender of Palermo.

Settimo and Vincenzo: principle against survival

In the aftermath, Pasquale Calvi accuses Vincenzo and the aristocrats present of having sold the island. Vincenzo cuts off Baron Turrisi’s attempt to calm Calvi, dismisses Calvi’s proclamations and rhetoric, and warns that he might otherwise have taken him to Ucciardone fortress himself. Calvi answers by recalling that Settimo and he had begged Vincenzo to defend the city, but that Vincenzo withdrew, like the others, and surrendered to Filangeri. His accusation makes Settimo’s appeal to defend Palermo the standard against which Vincenzo’s conduct is judged.

Vincenzo offers a sharply different account of that choice: resistance, he says, would have meant getting themselves killed, while surrender avoided a bloodbath. The exchange does not establish a simple verdict on Settimo or on Vincenzo. Settimo’s demand belongs to a cause whose leaders ultimately face exile; Vincenzo’s refusal belongs to a calculation shaped by the danger to lives and by the commercial losses he has described. Their opposed positions expose the revolution’s central strain in the novel: political independence demands sacrifices, but those asked to make them do not share the same risks, convictions, or reasons to keep fighting.